


Free of This Pain (Edited)

by Esmethewitch



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child of a Crackship, Clueless Obi-Wan, Dysfunctional Force Ghost Family, Fluff and Humor, Force Ghosts, Gen, Mental Health Issues, PMS, Post-Canon, Rey has an apprentice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 08:31:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16573145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmethewitch/pseuds/Esmethewitch
Summary: Rey has taken on a powerful young force user with a less-than-happy past as an apprentice, determined not to repeat the mistakes of the Jedi before her. As her charge grows, those around her wonder if the child is falling to the Dark Side or just experiencing a normal amount of pubescent angst. It's hard to tell sometimes. Slightly revised 12/3/18.





	Free of This Pain (Edited)

The Force Ghosts of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker floated over Rey’s young apprentice, who was currently in a fetal position on the living room couch, fists clutching at the pink throw blanket. The lights in the room were off.

“How long has she been like this?” Luke asked Anakin, materializing in front of the bookshelf.

“Since this morning,” Anakin replied. “She said she’d only go to school if Rey lifted her up with the Force and carried her there. Rey tried to use the mind trick on her, but Kara’s immune to that by now. Rey made her some tea and tried to get her to talk, but she had to go to work.”

Kara rolled over and glared up at them, pushing her dark hair out of her eyes. “I can see you and hear you. If you’re going to talk about me like I’m not there, at least have the manners to go somewhere else.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “Kara, we’re all a bit concerned about you. I sense much fear and anger. Fear is---”

She cut him off. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, suffering leads to the Dark Side, yadda yadda yadda. I’m already suffering and doing fine.”

“Actually, ‘Fear is the path to the Dark Side’ came first when Yoda said it,” corrected Obi-Wan who was often more pedantic than necessary.

“I don’t care, okay? I just need to be alone right now.” The girl was starting to cry and shoved her face into the cushions.

Luke floated over to her side. “Kara, at times like these you’re in the most danger from yourself. I’m here and you can talk to me about what’s going on.”

She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “That’s what you should have told Kylo. And maybe got a full night of sleep before deciding to stand over him with a lightsaber.”

He sighed. “Yes, that is what I should have done. I learned from my mistake and I’m trying to do the best thing for you now.”

The child’s face contorted into a grimace of pain. She stood up, throwing off the blanket that had draped over her shoulders. After a brief search in the coat closet, she picked up her trainer lightsaber.

“Oh no,” Anakin muttered. “Don’t do it, kid.”

Obi-Wan looked at him. “You do know that a trainer blade can’t give her anything more than a second-degree burn at the absolute worst.”

“I know, Obi-Wan. It’s just that thing she did with the blanket combined with how her eyes look now is giving me flashbacks.”

She ignored them and walked into the refresher, opening the medicine cabinet. A container of painkillers in hand, she dashed to the kitchen and activated the lightsaber, shearing off the container’s top.She swallowed a pill with a glass of water, noting the time and medication taken on a durasheet. The plastic container was slightly warped and melted by the lightsaber, but she shoved the top back on and wrapped it up with some tape. Mission accomplished, Kara went back to the couch and rolled herself into the blanket again.

“That was quite the way to open a pill container,” Luke remarked.

“I know how to get past the child-proof top, it just takes me a while and I don’t have time for that.”

Obi-Wan made his displeasure known. “Kara, you shouldn’t do drugs. Recreational use of painkillers is a gateway into harder things like Death Sticks…”

She practically snarled at him. “That wasn’t kriffing recreational. Everything hurts right now and I only took one. Rey told me it’s fine if I just take one pill at a time and record it.”

“Everything hurts…? Did you get knocked around in training? If Rey pushed you too hard I’ll have a word with her.” Anakin tried to sound reassuring.

“No, this is from something else. I’m not gonna explain it. You’ll never understand.”  
“Maybe we won’t completely get it, but we can listen and try to help you work through it.” Luke’s patience had increased exponentially after his death and exposure to the teenage precursor to Darth Vader.

“There’s not really anything to work through. None of you ever had a uterus, so you don’t know what I’m feeling right now.”

Yoda appeared, at last. “Idiots you all are,” he cackled. “ Growing, she is. Worry not.” Just as suddenly, he faded away.

Obi-Wan and Luke looked uncomfortable. Anakin gritted his teeth. “Oh. Padmé explained some of that to me, but I’d feel better if you talked with Rey. It was a shock to me when I heard about it…”

Kara laughed to see the Jedi ghosts so discomfited. “It’s okay. Rey got me a book about...changes that happen when you grow up and made me read it. It was an interesting book. I know this is normal. I just don’t like it. And I still have a thing about blood, even when I know where it came from.”

Luke cleared his throat. “So when you and Rey were making flatbread last night and you burst into tears for no apparent reason and then explained that because the dough was wrinkled it made you think about imperfections and aging and death, and that made you sad because you wanted to die but felt guilty for thinking it, that was normal?”

The ghosts exchanged looks. “Mood swings around this time are common in girls my age,” said Kara. “I’m twelve. It’s kind of a thing. Rey says they’ll go away as I get older. My therapist says so too, but we’re keeping an eye on it anyway because of the stuff that happened before Rey took me on.”

“I thought Anakin would grow out of his moods,” said Obi-Wan. “I was so wrong.”

“You never got me to a decent therapist,” Anakin countered. “Or seriously wondered if leaving my mother behind in slavery while I was only nine and being exposed to combat at an early age might have had a detrimental effect on my mental health.”

“I’m sorry Anakin. There was so much going on at the time that I couldn’t look into it. And the Jedi Council had views on that sort of thing.”

“My dad freaked out when I started having panic attacks,” Kara said. “He had the same thing when he was a kid. His were caused by different things than mine though. After I had my first one he took me back to our quarters and locked the door. He put on a pot of tea and wrapped me up in a blanket. I got to watch trashy holodramas for an afternoon. Normally he wouldn't do stuff like that. After we were both sane again, he started questioning me. I learned why he never talked about his childhood that day. It was all: 'Who's been hurting you? It's not your fault. You don't have to tell me exactly what they did, just give me names. I'll take care of them. Tell me if you want to see a therapist. I'll arrange it.'"

There was a painful silence in the living room. She continued. "I had to tell him the night terrors and attacks weren't caused by things that already happened to me when his back was turned, but by things that were _going_ to happen. To all of us. And I knew Mom's whole story. The parts he didn't tell me. Yes, I knew she grew up on Hays Minor. That she joined up with her big sister, trained in mechanical engineering eventually when her sister went to flight school. Met Dad at some engineers' conference. She pointed out a couple of errors in his work. He yelled at her, 'a mere mechanic presuming to know more than a theoretical specialist and a General'. She said to calm down and redo the calculations. He redid the work and she was right. Next week she got a written apology. On fancy paper. Everyone said that was the first time he'd ever apologized like that. That normally he'd just pretend it didn't happen. Mom was a good engineer but didn't really like it; she retrained as a pilot when her sister died. But she didn't die with honor when her TIE was shot down defending a dreadnought. She defected. Her loyalty to her sister was the only thing keeping her in the Order. She saved a Resistance pilot and a traitor, smuggled them off the base in a stolen TIE. She did die in battle, but in the end she flew an X-Wing."

"Your mother was a hero," Luke said. "If she hadn't gotten Dameron and Finn out of there, things would have gone differently."

"She died with honor from a certain point of view," said Obi-Wan. It seemed to Kara like he had waited for years to deliver that line again.

"Please stop saying that phrase. I still haven't gotten over your 'certain point of view' on my father." Luke sighed at his mentor. Whoever coined the phrase 'cabin fever' could never have imagined that situation lasting for eternity. 

Kara rolled her eyes. Ghosts. They'd bicker over the same old points until she too was outlined in blue, invisible to all but Force-Sensitives. And then she would get drawn into their arguments. Maybe start a few of her own. When she died, she would be sure not to leave behind any proteges or descendants in need of guidance. "Logically I'm glad she bantha-poodooed some fake recon mission and got them out, turned off her comms and disabled the tracking. But that doesn't change the fact that she left us. Can't blame her for leaving Dad, really. But she left me. I was a baby. I would have fit in a box. " 

"She didn't want to put you in danger," Anakin said. "If you didn't have the Force, you would have been safe with your father. If he only knew about your abilities sooner, you wouldn't have even been in the same system as Kylo Ren and Snoke, much less on the same ship. With your family history, it was unlikely that you'd have it. " 

"But I did. Stuff happened, even though Dad tried his best. At least we could always talk. I told Dad about the things that set the attacks off, and he taught me how to get out of them. He said it didn’t mean I was broken, it just meant I had normal reactions to anxiety and trauma and if I acted like everything was fine he’d be more worried about me. Even during the war, he still made time for me.”

There was silence. “Your father was…” Luke trailed off.

“I know what he did. He wasn’t a very good person, but he tried his best to be a good dad. I think he did okay. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he never tortured me. Or cut off my hand. I wasn’t spanked. He tried to keep me safe. Now he’s dead, I think. I never could reach out to him with the Force and if he were alive he would have visited me by now.” Kara started crying again. “Kriff, I’m such a burden. Dad tried to hide me from the higher-ups in the First Order and that put him in danger. In the end he had to have me smuggled out with another Resistance pilot and a defector. He told me to be good for Rey 'unless she stands over you with a lightsaber while you sleep or any other funny stuff happens, then I guess you can try to kill her.' He was crying. I never saw him do that before. But he stayed behind. I wish he didn't. Rey has to teach me how to be a Jedi, and I don’t want to be one.”

“Why don’t you want to be a Jedi?” Anakin asked in a diplomatic move. “Is there something you want to do instead?”

“Yes. I wanna be a xenobiologist and specialize in bacteria. There are so many different species. It’s crazy how many of them there are, and the midi-chlorians are weird. They’re just like mitochondria, only not and there aren’t any good theories about them so far. I like reading textbooks that stop and admit there are things that nobody knows yet.”  
Obi-Wan smiled. The girl still had a child’s natural enthusiasm, despite having rough patches here and there. “You can train to be a Jedi for a while, then go to University and study later.”

“I’m clumsy and I’m scared of getting a real lightsaber. I’ve seen what they can do. I’d rather talk things out than fight. The only other Jedi I know right now is Rey, and I’m not dueling her. She’d never hurt me either. If somebody actually wants me dead, there’s like a ninety-nine percent chance they’re not a force-user. I can just stop their blaster shots with the Force or choke them out or make them think I’m not there. If you think about it, I don’t need a lightsaber. They’re useless for anything but killing people and I don’t want to kill people.”

Luke nodded. “Well it seems like there’s nothing we need to worry about. Good job at the school play last week. You were very convincing as Queen Amidala’s Handmaiden No. 5.”

“You went to my school play?”

“Yes, “ said Obi-Wan. “It gets a bit dull in the Force afterlife and we try to take an interest in the next generation. You were great.”

“Thanks. I only got one line and I was considering not showing up in protest. I mean, who was going to notice one less handmaiden? At least I wasn’t Mako Endi. She had no lines at all, but she got to wear a really cool set of armor as the Bounty Hunter. She said she couldn’t see anything through it though. I think if I have to do Drama again, I’m going to do a mind trick on Mrs. Nore so I get a better part.”

“Or you could have practiced more for your audition,” Luke remarked.

“Yeah, that too. But she always gives the popular kids the best parts and that’s not fair. I did a way better job than prissy little Davy Sprue and he somehow managed to get a part as a pilot. He got three lines.”

“There’s always the Spring play,” said Anakin. “I’m sure you’ll get a better part then. And if she is actually showing favoritism, a mind trick or two wouldn’t hurt.” He looked to his fellow ghosts. “We should probably head out. It’s getting late.”

“You’re dead. Why do you still care about time?”

“There are a few kids in Canto Bight that don’t have anyone teaching them yet. Most of them are in stable homes with their biological or adoptive parents, so it doesn’t make sense for them to come out here for Rey. We give them lessons at four o’clock local time on Thursdays. ”

“Oh. Thanks for talking to me. Sorry I was such a grouch.”

“No problem. Sorry we overreacted. We just don’t want another Darth Vader or Kylo Ren.” Luke smiled. “Let’s go everybody.” They faded out, leaving Kara lying on the couch.  
The spasms returned. She felt like there was a rancor trapped inside of her trying to eat its way out. The front door opened and Rey walked in.

“Kara, I’m home! Are you feeling better?” She turned on the light.

Her apprentice looked up at her through messy black hair. “I want to be free of this pain,” she whispered.

Rey’s hand jerked back towards her lightsaber in its holster, but then she aborted the motion and turned it into an awkward swing. Years ago, she couldn’t understand why Luke Skywalker was so scared of Ben. Now she had an idea. But she would ask the questions he didn’t, and their story would end differently.

“What kind of pain is it?”

“It feels like my uterus is trying to eat me alive. I took a painkiller but it still hurts.”  
“Ah. Go take a nice long shower. Hot water and a change of position does wonders. When you’re done, go outside and take a walk if you can.”

“Rey?”

“Yes Kara?”

“You looked scary for a second there. Like you were going to square up for a fight or something. Are you okay? Was it something I said?”

“No, Kara. You did nothing wrong. You just reminded me of somebody I used to know for a moment.”

She helped the girl up and gave her a big hug. “I know it’s rough now, but you can get through this. It’s only your third month. It will get better.”  
“Thanks, Rey.”

“You’re welcome. Now stop moping and go take a shower.”

Kara left for the refresher. Rey let out a sigh of relief. Her ward bore a slight physical resemblance to Kylo and was briefly his student, but the darkness inside her was no greater than that of the average adolescent girl. She would learn how to handle it soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Edited this on 12/3/18. I realized that I wanted to give the Force Ghosts a stronger reason to worry about my child O.C. and make this more than a long-running PMS joke. And with my OC's implied parentage and brief early training, they have plenty of cause for concern...


End file.
